Inequality Alive and Well in US

Inequality Alive and Well in US

President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress face one
overriding domestic challenge. Can they reverse a generation-long
plunge toward economic inequality not seen since the Gilded Age?

During
the campaign, Democrats argued that working and middle-class citizens
would be better off under their tax proposals. This debate is
important, but it obscures one quintessentially American trait. More
workers in the U.S. than in other nations are convinced they are going
to become rich. They identify with the interests and ideas of the rich.
It is important to reduce taxes on the working class. Nonetheless, fair
taxation and economic justice are less likely as long as many believe
they are only a little more hard work - or one lottery ticket - away
from wealth.

Recent studies show that rags to riches stories, so
widely publicized here, are actually less common than in much-reviled
and more egalitarian European social democracies. Nonetheless,
statistical attacks on mythology often fail to address the gut level
concerns that feed it. Reformers must counter Horatio Alger tales of
fortune tapping the hardworking for great wealth. Many of the largest
modern fortunes are not the result of work or clever invention but
insider deals that harm ordinary workers and even investors.

Hank
Paulson's bailout was administered by Wall Street insiders, who
showered billions of dollars on a narrow cadre of investment bankers.
These banks in turn plot more mergers even as they abstain from lending
to productive enterprises. The income investment bankers make from
marketing exotic derivatives that destabilize the world economy is then
taxed at about half the rate of plumbers' incomes. The plumber trying
to start a business is paying more taxes so that investment bankers can
pay less.

Vivid portrayals of the origins of many modern fortunes
serve two purposes. They show much wealth as a consequence of actions
with which many citizens do not identify. The wealthy themselves may
seem like a less endearing group. They also suggest how implausible
rags-to-riches dreams are.

Over the longer term, reforms must
address not only pocketbook inequality but also quality of life issues.
Even during the '50s and '60s, when more workers enjoyed union
protections and a better safety net, corporate enterprise was extremely
hierarchical. Workers had security but no voice in the structure of
their jobs, let alone the broader corporate policies. Labor writer Jane
Slaughter points out: "The factories continued to be, in [Walter]
Reuther's words, ‘gold-plated sweatshops.' ... The mind-numbing drudgery,
the high injury rates, the heat and smoke ... led many workers to hit the
bottle - and, in one famous case, led black Detroit Chrysler worker
James Johnson to pick up a gun and shoot two supervisors and a
co-worker. A jury after a plant tour, found that brutal working
conditions and Chrysler's shop-floor racism had literally driven
Johnson insane."

With unions under an unprincipled corporate
attack today, workers lack even minimal security. Absent a political
movement that can advance broader - and in fact more productive - forms
of enterprise in which workers share in profits, participate in product
design and financial planning, and have representation on boards, it is
not surprising that in addition to or instead of the bottle or the gun,
aspirations to and dreams of wealth take root.

If becoming rich
is the only game in town, some may continue to embrace that dream.
Let's emphasize and enable the choice of other possible dreams. Just as
workers seek challenging workplaces, they also need the right to
consider work sharing as a short-term strategy to avoid or reduce
layoffs. Longer term they should be able to take future productivity
gains in the form of reduced working hours rather than higher total
wages. (More on this in a subsequent column.)

Oppressive time
demands, such as crushing levels of debt, are a lurking instability
that could be potentially mobilized toward progressive ends. Debt
relief coupled with providing and celebrating the opportunities
afforded by getting off the work/debt/consumption treadmill is
essential. If we enhance opportunities to enjoy daily life and present
more sympathetic and diverse portrayals of the joys afforded by family
and leisure activities, fewer citizens may imbibe the Horatio Alger
nectar.

Further

With the toxic Bibi circus in town - cue talk of "tentacles of terror" - find hope in the extraordinary Combatants For Peace, a joint effort by weary Israeli and Palestinian veterans of violence who've laid down their guns to fight for peace. Led by a former IDF soldier and Fatah militant who both lost daughters to the conflict's "unrightable wrongs," they insist on the need to "hear what is painful" and "talk to your 'enemies'...Partners for peace always exist. You only have to look for them."